http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/ Engadget Comments for http://www.engadget.com/media/feedlogo.gif http://www.engadget.com en-us Copyright 2012 Weblogs, Inc. The contents of this feed are available for non-commercial use only. Blogsmith http://www.blogsmith.com/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/Oct 6th 2009 3:11AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/
Talk about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, M$ owns the desktop, productivity apps, business computing and they tried to own the internet with IE6.

Bill Gates saw the writing on the wall and got out on top and left it to buffoons like Balmer to preside over the inevitable demise of M$]]>Oct 6th 2009 3:36AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/
I've never used winMo ever, so I have no idea how everything works, the main thing I want to ask is if there are any specific things I should do. Can you like reformat it with a clean version of winmo? Or get a new UI or something, I'm not much of a cellphone kinda guy. Please help!

BTW, it's winmo 6.1 ]]>Oct 6th 2009 3:47AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/]]>Oct 6th 2009 4:02AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/Oct 6th 2009 4:06AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/Oct 6th 2009 4:28AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/Ballmer isn't going admit it publicly for now. Otherwise, MS won't be pouring money
into Project Pink. There are no other explanations for Project Pink, period.
And yes, Win 7 is for Project Pink. You heard it here, okay.



]]>Oct 6th 2009 4:42AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/HTC (Touch Flow 3D) and Samsung(Touch Wiz in Omnia II) are doing an amazing job of providing rich UI on Windows Mobile.

But it is painfully clear that compared to the likes of Apple and Palm, work done by HTC and Samsung are still just skinning.

Forget the honey-comb start screen and the jazzed up context menus. What MS needs to provide is a rich set of Graphics APIs and a modern UI framework, it is time to say goodbye to old Win32.
Something which recognizes the need for Animation, OpenGL, etc.

HTC and Samsung are spending huge amount of resources trying to come up with their own UI framework, but will never get to the point where Cocoa is. Apple seamlessly integrates libraries such as CoreAnimation, CoreGraphics, etc with their environment. Win32 provides no such thing.

Windows App developers struggle with horrible frameworks like ATL and MFC, trying to bind the plethora of technologies needed to create a good looking app for windows.

It takes a huge amount of effort and system overhead to provide the rich experience given by TouchFlow 3d, or Samsung's latest Touch wiz iteration.

It is Microsoft's duty to now come up with a competitive framework and allow app developers and OEMs to indulge in creativity rather than trying to hide the horrible under belly of Windows Mobile.]]>Oct 6th 2009 5:23AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/Oct 6th 2009 8:28AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/
Was that the famed Simultaneous Global Windows Mobile 6.5 launch??!

Two official handset announcements of devices that were announced ages ago anyway? (HTC Imagio and Pure)

Is that all that's readily available to buy on the grand WinMo launch day with other devices not coming to market until November, the holidays or even January?

Seriously??

What happened to all those grand announcements from SonyEricsson (what ever happened to X2?) and Samsung (when is this rumoured Omnia Pro B7610 with 6.5 finally going to come out?)

Not to mention Microsoft's own WinMo website which mentions exactly TWO handsets with 6.5 on it.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/en-us/meet/windows-to-go.mspx

I have an Xperia X1 and I have absolutely ZERO incentive to upgrade at this point; no incentive from a hardware point of view and no incentive from an OS aspect either.

Where's that grand choice we were promised??

By the time they release other handsets, WinMo will be totally irrelevant because both the Pre and Android as well as Maemo will only have strengthened their market presence and enriched their app stores.

FAIL!]]>Oct 6th 2009 10:38AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/
You know, you provide a whole lot of fancy terminology to give the appearance that you know what you are talking about, mentioning ATL, MFC, Cocoa, etc, but in the end you honestly don't, achieving nothing more than name dropping. The one thing WMo actually has going for it is the .Net Compact framework which is probably the most developer friendly embedded API set and development environment. Someone who spends a good deal of time with the full framework will certainly appreciate what is missing from the Compact Framework, and there is quite a bit of noticable gaps there, but it is miles away from the likes of ATL, and has been since 2003. So congratulations, you are only about 6 years out of date in your criticism, which in the world of development technologies is the equivelent of living in the cambrian.

Incidentally, all of the spiffy visual effects, utterly trivial with managed DirectX in the .Net CF. That most developers don't use them has almost nothing to do with the availability or ease of use. If you want to bag on Windows Mobile there are a wealth of very legitimate criticism (the fact that everything but the development environment is stuck in the Pocket PC days for example) but development frameworks is not one of them.]]>Oct 6th 2009 11:15AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/Anyways this is probably why Opera ships standard on all the HTC chipsets as the default browser, and will probably continue to do so. It's a pity that the makers of Iris got purchased by Blackberry but at least there's still one other Webkit browser in development for Windows Mobile that seems promising (Dorothy), so the fact that Internet Explorer still blows doesn't neccessarily define the internet experience on Windows Mobile.
But that said I would just like to say: MICROSOFT!!! Maybe it's time you guys just like...give up on the Internet Explorer engine. It stinks, and if you guys really want to do it right then you need to dump tons of resources into doing a serious from scratch rewrite of everything because this just doesn't cut it on modern websites anymore-ESPECIALLY not on limited hardware. And if you're not willing to invest those kinds of resources would you just please repackage Webkit like everyone else? I won't hold it against you, because I don't use Internet Explorer unless I absolutely have to for some horrible compatibility reason and mostly it's because it runs like horse dung. Seriously, either give up or give it the most ridiculous budget ever to make IE fast again (yes, there was a time when IE was the fast browser, standards be damned).
And if it's really that shameful just have some subsidiary of a subsidiary buy up the guys that are making Dorothy a la Blackberry. Then deny that you ever knew but secretly help them perfect webkit for Windows Mobile. Don't worry, it'll be our little secret.]]>Oct 27th 2009 1:00AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/Oct 6th 2009 3:11AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/
They didnt like any part of it, duh. Hell, they give the same treatment to WebOS and barely give kudos to Android and Blackberry. So when they say it's awful, then I know it's way better. And yes, i use 6.5. have been for months, and it works perfectly fine, and as advertised.



]]>Oct 6th 2009 7:17AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/
And, you'll notice, Chris is pretty clear on that point - the OS isn't going to attract many people but that's not to say the hardware it's on won't since the last thing most phone buyers care about is the operating system it uses.

It's a needed release but it ain't a panacea.]]>Oct 6th 2009 7:26AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/So your first argument is that this site is Apple-biased, then your second argument is that the story was put out at 3am to fly under the radar? Which is it? If the site hates MS so much, shouldn't it put this article out at 10am, prime Starbucks-sipping hour, so that we can all laugh at MS as we enjoy our soy lattes?

The fact of the matter is Windows Mobile is a very dated platform that needs a complete redesign, not just a skin. Hell, the most excitement you can muster is to say "it works perfectly fine." For all your rants about fanboyism, maybe you should just look in the mirror and be honest with yourself.

Slashdot links to PC Pro (?)'s article: "If this is the best [Microsoft] can muster in the year-and-a-half's worth of development time since Windows Mobile 6.1 appeared, we'll be dramatically lowering our hopes for Windows Mobile 7.'"

I personally think WM has been dead since before the iPhone came out. I ditched it after 2 weeks to go back to a featurephone, it was that bad. The iPhone has changed what users expect from a smartphone, and Android and Palm are bringing alternatives to the masses. They're making WinMo look like the lousy standout in a field of good competition.

If you want to wait until WinMo7 before making a final judgement, great, that's a valid way to go. But don't pretend like WM6.5 criticism is just a bunch of uppity tech snobs keeping poor Microsoft down.]]>Oct 6th 2009 10:24AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/
Plus I think the lock screen as actually very good and requires a bit more detail in the review!]]>Oct 6th 2009 3:13AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/Oct 6th 2009 3:13AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/Oct 6th 2009 3:25AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/
In other words, in 6.1, WM Pro had minor changes, WM Standard had big changes.
6.5, WM Pro has bigger changes, WM Standard has minor changes.

So, it's not too big of a deal that 6.5 doesn't help Standard much. (That sliding panels homescreen for example improved usability a ton).]]>Oct 6th 2009 3:16AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/
i'm a complete WM fanboy, and this is just horrible. if i had my choice i'd still be using wm2003's style of running complete in RAM rather than rom. it was somuch faster.

mix that with wm5s functionality? couldnt get any better.]]>Oct 6th 2009 3:16AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/Oct 6th 2009 3:17AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/Also, if you ever went on XDA developers, you would realize that so much more can be done with 6.5 as seen in the various forums in XDA.
'nuff said.]]>Oct 6th 2009 3:35AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/Oct 6th 2009 8:35AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/
No one in the know actually runs stock ROMs on WinMo devices, so that's not a problem.

The newer builds with the touch friendly buttons and pull down top bar with easy access to settings are really nice even on my 3 year old Tilt!

WinMo is not bad, and it is customizable more than anything else. However, 7 better be good or MS may as well leave the mobile space.]]>Oct 6th 2009 3:24AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/Oct 6th 2009 3:40AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/
They should be reviewing the 6.5 that's been released, and they should call it like it is, and get MS to get off their butts, and stop delaying 7.]]>Oct 6th 2009 4:08AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/Oct 6th 2009 5:05AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/
There are two approaches to personal electronics: lower your expectations until they're met by the device you buy, or improve the device until it does what you want it to do.

There are LEGIONS of developers, hackers, and tinkerers out there all working to make their devices better. If you're happy with all the sacrifices and compromises a company has to make in order to meet cost and schedule deadlines, awesome. It must be nice to live in a world with such low expectations that consumer electronics designed to meet the minimum common requirements of 10 million people are good enough for you.]]>Oct 6th 2009 2:21PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/Oct 6th 2009 3:44PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/
Than why would anyone ever need to "jailbreak" the "1 phone to rule them all"?]]>Oct 13th 2009 10:54AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/Oct 6th 2009 3:31AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/Oct 6th 2009 4:07AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/Oct 6th 2009 4:17AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/Oct 6th 2009 5:05PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/
I plan on getting the Tilt, but having a good accelerameter would be nice.]]>Oct 6th 2009 3:32AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/Oct 6th 2009 1:01PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/Oct 6th 2009 11:49AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/Oct 7th 2009 12:38AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/Oct 6th 2009 3:36AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/
In fact I believe 6.5 which is supposed to be stop-gap (whatever) may make potential buyers drift further from WinMo. I wish they could have just taken 6-7 months more and released WinMo 7 with zune-ish interface instead of spending time on this already dead before release platform.
Props for engadget for showing both the sides of the operating system and a fair review

:(]]>Oct 6th 2009 3:41AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/Oct 6th 2009 4:56AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/Oct 6th 2009 7:38AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/
(Which isn't even the latest version of CE.)]]>Oct 6th 2009 9:12AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/Oct 6th 2009 3:52AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/Oct 6th 2009 3:54AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/
Like chambo said no one runs stock ROMs so who really cares? The only problem with that is that there's additional code running which just slows down that outdated processor on top of that crappy UI. It would be much better if the UI was done right the first time. I guess if it wasn't for the crappy UIs we wouldn't have TouchFlo or Xperia's panels.

Yeah, why is the accelerometer so slow on that phone? The Tilt/Tytn II could transition so much faster. And did I see an exit button on the IE menu? That's slightly surprising.]]>Oct 6th 2009 3:55AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/Oct 6th 2009 4:52AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/Oct 6th 2009 9:57AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/windows-mobile-6-5-review/
How many times, if ever, do you think you'll see that screen? All of those buttons can be pressed without a stylus, by the way.

And the OK button? No need for a stylus either. I know it looks small, but the touch-sensitive area seems to be bigger usually (or at least feels that way).]]>Oct 6th 2009 4:03AM